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World Cup Day 7: Recife Underwater and USA vs. Germany Recap

Yesterday, flooding in Recife created an absurd World Cup pregame scene. Many of the fans didn’t even make it. The rain started over night and continued through the game.

Luckily our bus was able to navigate through backstreets, through flooded intersections, and over curbs and we arrived with a few hours to spare. Our driver guided our car through the tough waters and never gave up.

Highlights of the game. Us doing face paint while stuck in traffic, singing Neil Diamond’s “Coming to America” as we entered the stadium and random strangers joining us, and making friends with Germans in our section.

I was wearing my California State Flag so we met a lot of people from my state. Also, we saw people dressed as the ghost of Abe Lincoln, as General George Washington, and as Superman, Batman, and Ironman.

The game was eventful at best and insane at worst. There was a fist fight in our section between Americans and Germans. Tensions ran high as chants of “USA, USA” and “I believe” were countered with songs about the “Deutschland.” Let me tell you, this Jewish kid doesn’t like being yelled at in German. Something in my DNA goes cold, but all in all it was a fun day.

Germany scored one goal and won agains Team USA. That said, we were all damn proud of our boys on the field. USA will move on to the next round and now it all gets real this Saturday as the World Cup continues.

Below is an image of what the streets looked like as we navigated the floods.